September 02, 2007

Party Time. Everyone put on their birthday hats, I will. Today Uncle Monty is celebrating his 49th, and Uncle Don his 68th. As you can see they’re both filled with girlish glee. Just weeks ago, Aunt Kris took cousin Sarah’s birthday to stealth-celebrate her 50th. They all seem to be aging really well, but still take the time to bemoan the encroaching years. I think I’ll age in reverse until I hit 25 and just freeze at that age for the next 20 or so.

The kids, not including me despite my anti-aging pacts with the devil, took this Sunday to celebrate (or lament) the end of the summer. Most of them used this summer to take extra courses, so maybe it wasn’t a true summer for some of them. I think when I was their age the summer was primarily used for training, family Canada vacations, and staying up late watching sci-fi movies and reading epic novels.

Speaking of fantasy novels, I finally sat down and finished Stardust. I was pleased to find that it was even more enjoyable than the Hollywood version. I think most books are that way. Peter Deluise, a director on one of my favorite shows said that sometimes they’ll call parts of stories “the book version” when doing certain scenes. It means that the audience or reader in this case will always come up with something far better than what Hollywood can produce.

Next it’s on to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. I have seen all incarnations of the movie adaptations many times and have enjoyed them all thoroughly. I haven’t read any of the novels, and there are a ton of them; all relating to the universe/storyline created in the first novel. I think his children are writing novels within the Dune universe/storyline much like Tolkein’s children have carried on his work. I actually saw a new LOTR novel at Barnes and Noble the other day, but chose to wait on picking it up.